'Take This Job And Planet!': Why Clark Kent Quit His Day Job : Monkey SeeNow that Clark Kent's abandoning print journalism for the web, our comics blogger ruminates on the reasons for his decision, and wonders where it might lead.

As I got to mention on yesterday's All Things Considered, it's not the first time Kent and the Daily Planet have parted ways*, and it won't be the last. But this latest instance, as written by Scott Lobdell, makes a measure of intrinsic sense, once you consider who Clark Kent is.

For one thing, he's not Peter Parker.

An Essential Difference

Reporter Kent and photojournalist Parker — the alter egos of DC and Marvel's two flagship characters, respectively — have both found themselves hit by the challenges now facing the print news industry. But how their respective experiences have differed says a lot about who they are as characters, and what they represent.

Peter Parker, fired? Having to scramble to find a new job? And worry about making his rent?

Well ... yeah. Of course. That's who the guy is, who he's always been: The sad sack, the unlucky schlub we all too often glimpse in the mirror. He's one of us. That's what he is for.

Superman, unlike ol' Webhead, is not the hero with whom we identify, he's the hero in whom we believe.

Listen to the All Things Considered story about Clark Kent's job change here.

The Man of Steel represents us at our very best — which is just a nice way of saying that, most days, he's better than we are. But then, that's what he's for: He's an icon, and ideal, a cobalt-blue example, a model for a breed of selflessness and determination to which we aspire.

And what else would an ideal be but an idealist himself? We already know the guy believes in slapping capital letters on abstractions like Truth, Justice and the American Way. The fact that the Truth in that equation turns out to include the journalistic variety, and that he's wiling to sacrifice a steady paycheck to pursue it?

"[Clark's decision to quit] is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren't really his own," [writer Scott] Lobdell explains.

"Superman is arguably the most powerful person on the planet, but how long can he sit at his desk with someone breathing down his neck and treating him like the least important person in the world?"

Since DC's New 52 reboot last year, Superman's writers have endeavored to cast the Man of Steel in his original Golden Age mold — a social activist in spandex, a bully to those who would bully the little guy.

World War II filed down the character's hard edges, transforming him first into a patriotic symbol and, later, into a coolly paternal representative of the Establishment. But in today's DC Universe, Superman has once again assumed the role of crusader, giving corporate fat-cats the old what-for. So the notion that New-52 Clark Kent would challenge a large media conglomerate fits with who he is.

But I dunno. Something about that quote — the way it posits a Man of Steel seething with resentment over the fact that his specialness is going unrecognized, unrewarded — introduces discordant and distinctly un-Super notes of Millennial entitlement and, weirdly, Ayn Rand.

And that would represent a fundamental mis-read of the character. The fact that Superman puts the needs of others over those of himself is coded into the character's DNA. It's not a thing he does, it is who he is. It's all he is.

So that's the question: Whither the Man of Tomorrow, tomorrow? Will he become an online raker of muck, or content himself with cupcake blogging? Or will he in fact emerge as an Objectivist Man of Reason, dismissing supervillain and citizen alike as "specimens of insolent depravity who make demands" on him, as the Randians say?

I hope not that last one, but I do have to admit: It'd free up the guy's schedule.

Monkey See is all about pop culture, aspiring to be both a friend to the geek and a translator for the confused. It's hosted by Linda Holmes, who can be reached via Twitter or our much more formal contact form.